i was installing a cover plate onto a wall outlet when bella walked up behind me and just started talking to the back of my head.

BELLA
dad. mom said i shouldn't put the yellow things on my vulva.

TROY(silence)

BELLA
she said they make something different for that.

TROY(silence)

BELLA
but it was a word i don't know how to say.

TROY(silence)

from the moment she began speaking, i was holding so still one would have thought it was a rocky mountain grizzly standing behind me and not a forty pound, pig-tailed girl. the only thing moving, other than bella's lips, were my eyes, and they were darting nervously around, wishing very hard bella would stop saying things. this frozen stance held until she got her message out and turned marching out as confidently as she strode in.

in mentally reviewing my parental fumble, i think i'll let marty continue to field the vulva-related queries. there is little doubt that bella's knowledge on the matter impressively exceeds my own anyway. i mean hell, she's already got a line on the yellow things. i'm nowhere on the yellow-things. only that they don't go 'there', there's already something in the marketplace doing their job and that the mystery product's name is unpronounceable by my four year old daughter.

fact is, the only use i have for the yellow things is to approach guys i work with and do to them what bella did to me.

hey troy, server's acting up again, any ideas?

steve said we shouldn't put the yellow things on our vulvas.

huh?

yeah, he said they make something different for that?

what the hell you talking about man?

he said there was a word for it but i can't remember what it was.

and then, like bella, i would turn and walk away privately knowing that google would be placing a few more hash marks next to the word VULVA in their omniscient database that day.